Since the pandemic hit, many events, from conferences to concerts and from festivals to expos, have been replaced by virtual ones. People are realizing that hosting a virtual event is far easier with more benefits.
You can attract 5 to 10 times more audience to your virtual event than you could have at your physical event venue. And if we talk about a virtual fest, you can gather a large audience online to attend your fest. It is not possible to organize a fest with a huge audience physically due to the social distancing and international travel restrictions in the pandemic. Thus, hosting your fest online is the best thing you could do to reach the local and international audience.
So, how do you host a virtual fest?
Understand your Target Audience
Before hosting a virtual fest, you need to understand your target audience and find out the answers to the following questions:
- How much tech-savvy is your audience?
- How active is your audience on social media like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.?
- How many people will attend your virtual fest?
- Will you be able to fulfill the audience’s expectations?
- What type of offers do they prefer like coupon codes, sweepstakes, etc.?
You can take a survey of the audience and understand them in a better way.
Choosing a Date and Time for a Virtual Fest
To host a virtual event, you should choose the perfect date and time when more and more viewers can be engaged in your fest. The weekends’ evenings are the ideal times to host a fest and Livestream. However, you need to be assured that your event date and time doesn’t coincide with another important event date and time.
Another way of choosing a date and time is to take suggestions from your audience and select the one where the majority agrees. It is always a good idea for global reach to pre-record the video and upload it later so people staying in different time zones can view your content as per their comfort.
Selecting a Virtual Fest Platform
There are plenty of virtual fest platforms to choose from and host your virtual fest. Some of the popular platforms include Dreamcast, Brella, Pathable, and so on. All these virtual event platforms offer similar features and you can choose one of them based on your preference. Dreamcast is one of the largest platforms that offers 100% customization as per the host’s requirements and an excellent tech support facility.
Whichever Virtual event platform you choose, the important thing is to share your requirements with the team and tell them what exactly you want it to be, so that your Virtual event platform team would be able to deliver in the best possible way. You can also ask for a test and trial before the fest to familiarize yourself with the tools and technical features.
Define virtual fest format
The virtual fest can be organized in several formats. It could be just a webinar where a speaker takes the stage and entertains people or it could be a 2-way communication where the audience and organizers can interact online so that the audience does not feel left out while watching the fest. The purpose is to make your fest differentiated from the rest of the fests and make the audience experience unique and exciting.
Make a plan whether you are going to Livestream or pre-record everything and upload it later? Choosing one of these two formats also relies on your time zone? If you have attendees with different time zones then it is better to have both options so that they can view your content in their comfort zone from anywhere.
Engagement with the Virtual Audience
If your fest involves talks, presentations, or lectures then brief out the details of speakers and the topics to be covered in the sessions. This year, the Jaipur Literature Festival was very well organized online by Dreamcast. Various sessions and lectures by great authors were live-streamed and pre-recorded for viewers. To make your virtual fest successful, engage the audience through interactive tools like Q&A sessions, contests, and so on. Remember, if the audience feels bored, it is very easy for them to turn off the online fest than to walk out of a fest venue physically with a huge audience.
Speakers should look at the camera lens while speaking to make the audience feel connected. Even though a speaker has good speaking skills, he should rehearse more and more and should be able to deliver with energy and enthusiasm.
Adding Virtual Networking Tables feature
Face-to-face communication is easier in on-site events. Thus to have effective communication among attendees, sponsors, and speakers in the virtual events, a virtual networking table feature is introduced. Attendees can have one-to-one communication in real-time during the event or schedule an appointment. Many tables can be created as per the requirements of the event organizer with an option of personal discussion and group discussions.
Offer 24X7 Technical Support to the audience
Virtual fest platforms offer 24X7 technical support to the audience so that the attendees can view the content hassle-free. They promise to resolve the audience’s issues at the earliest. This enables the audience to stay connected throughout the event.
Promotion of Virtual Fest
To gain more and more audience, you need to market your fest as much as possible. Social Media can play an important role in building up your brand and promoting your virtual fest. Along with Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Tweets, you must also follow other methods for promotion. Links to bios and vlogs of speakers can be also shared on social media to attract more people. Share a guide on how to view Livestream and its details.
Promote hashtags of your fest and request the followers to use them frequently on social media while posting anything regarding this fest. You can also urge your sponsors to promote your hashtags via their social media profiles. This will increase your visibility and reach on social media.
If you have a list of email subscribers then you can also promote your fest by sending emails to these subscribers.
Curate Gamification in the Virtual Fest
Gone are the days when it was difficult to engage the audience in virtual events. With the introduction of the gamification feature in the virtual fest, you can engage the audience and keep busy on your platform. Several games can be integrated into the virtual fest. Motivate the audience to play these games and add their scores to the leaderboard. Allow the participants to redeem the earned points in return for some virtual gifts or prizes.
Leverage Data Analytics in the Virtual Fest
Data Analytics enables you to identify how your audience is engaging with and their preference of things they are interested in. This data helps you in delivering the audience what they want. To get a better idea about the audience, you can ask them certain questions during the registration process. With the proper planning, you can gather valuable data, analyze it and then use it for your next virtual fest planning.
In modern times, when hosting a virtual fest is so easy, take advantage of this feature and grow your audience globally. We know that face-to-face communication has more power but we have to change ourselves with the going trend. Virtual fests can be organized easily on short notice with a few components.
Choose the best virtual event platform and make the best of it for hosting your virtual fest. To organize a successful virtual fest, book a demo with Dreamcast now!
